This article examines the interest rate risk characteristics of a general class of floating rate securities, which includes Chance's securities as a special case. The calculation of duration for Chance's securities is zero, as it should be. Securities in the broader class can have durations that are negative or longer than the period of time that must elapse before the payments can reflect changes in market interest rates. The effect on duration of changes in the parameters of the function relating interest rate shocks to the payments and changes in the slope of the term structure are examined.

The group of issues that falls under the heading of bank capital adequacy has received a great deal of attention from academics, regulators, and bankers in recent years and is likely to continue as a subject for debate for many years to come. Although the traditional questions debated in the literature on capital adequacy are important and remain unresolved, this paper is not directed at them. Instead, the approach here is to examine how bank regulators operating within the existing legal structure of regulation can pursue optimal policies with respect to the regulation of bank capital.

The traditional view of the futures clearinghouse as an insurer that eliminates the need for customers to evaluate default risk is inaccurate. A clearinghouse member default in 1985 confirms that the clearinghouse only guarantees payment from member to member, not from customer to customer or member to customer. Thus, non‐defaulting customers are subject to losses as a result of the action of individuals with whom thay have no contractual obligations. This study models the behavior of customers choosing a futures commission merchant (FCM) given the current legal position of the clearinghouse. In a single‐period model with symmetric information, customers can eliminate their exposure to defaults of other customers or of their FCM only by choosing to trade through “boutique” (undiversified) FCMs. In practice, monitoring and rebalancing costs may impede the attainment of zero default risk. However, FCM diversification remains an important factor in customer choice of an FCM. When setting capital requirements, clearinghouses and government regulators need to consider the implications of diversification for both customer and market protection.

This paper investigates the hedge ratio dynamics for large US banks with exposure to both interest rate and foreign exchange risks. Using a mean–variance framework, the paper evaluates hedging performance when interest rate and foreign exchange risks are hedged separately versus simultaneously. Optimal hedge ratios for separate and simultaneous hedging strategies are estimated using the multivariate GARCH model. The magnitude of separate hedge ratios is found to consistently overstate that of simultaneous hedge ratios for banks that engage in both domestic loan extensions and foreign exchange operations. Both in-sample and out-of-sample results indicate that a simultaneous hedging strategy outperforms a separate hedging strategy. The mean–variance efficiency test results strongly support statistical significance to this finding.

This paper considers the maturity intermediation and intertemporal lending decisions of risk-averse financial intermediaries. In particular, the maturity mismatch problem and the fixed-versus-variable-rate lending decision are modeled when the major source of risk involves uncertain future interest rates. The results imply that the strategy of matching the maturity of assets and liabilities is not generally optimal or even minimum risk. This is due primarily to the “built-in” hedge that the intermediary has as a result of rolling over short-term loans while continuing to finance long-term loans. Intertemporal dependencies between loan demand and costs (or both) also have an effect on the optimal degree of maturity mismatching and provide one rationale for making loans at rates below current marginal cost.

This paper considers the maturity intermediation and intertemporal lending decisions of risk‐averse financial intermediaries. In particular, the maturity mismatch problem and the fixed‐versus‐variable‐rate lending decision are modeled when the major source of risk involves uncertain future interest rates. The results imply that the strategy of matching the maturity of assets and liabilities is not generally optimal or even minimum risk. This is due primarily to the “built‐in” hedge that the intermediary has as a result of rolling over short‐term loans while continuing to finance long‐term loans. Intertemporal dependencies between loan demand and costs (or both) also have an effect on the optimal degree of maturity mismatching and provide one rationale for making loans at rates below current marginal cost.